If you have a product or service that you want to sell online, 2021 may be the perfect time to make it happen! Due to the COVID-19 pandemic our shopping habits have greatly changed across the world. The need to stay safe while shopping has pushed online sales of nearly everything higher than ever before, with e-commerce sales being expected to surpass $1 trillion in the US next year and $4.2 trillion globally, before the pandemic, sales were not predicted to reach this amount until 2024. The importance of getting the products we needed in a shutdown world, or to simply purchase things to distract us from it, drove more and more people who had never shopped online to try it out for the first time. It was found that 9% of American shoppers, 8% of Japanese shoppers, and 15% in the UK had never made a purchase online before the pandemic, and it is predicted that most of these new online shoppers will likely continue making online transactions after the pandemic is over.
The convenience of online shopping and transactions is crucial, considering the fact that 78% of consumers value convenience more now than they did before the pandemic. With the world becoming more difficult to shop and transact business in, more and more people are finding the value in being able to do their transactions from their own home. Before the pandemic, 28% of people shopped online weekly and since that number has grown to 36%, and 49% of people globally now report that the shop online now more than they did before the pandemic. As of this year, 62.5% of consumers globally are doing most of their shopping online and 30.8% of those shoppers say that the convenience of shopping online outweighs any of the downsides of online shopping like shipping time or extra fees.
In the US alone, it was estimated that $8 billion dollars more were spent online than what was predicted before the pandemic, and e-commerce sales reached $196.66 billion in the first quarter of 2021, which was up by 39% from last year. On top of those figures, online spending represented 21.3% of all retail sales in 2020, compared to only 15.8% in 2019. This is why many people are finally making the decision to start their online shops or businesses, in fact, while brick and mortar businesses declined by 14% since the pandemic, e-commerce businesses grew by 18%. Even the housing market saw an increase in business online, with 63% of homebuyers making offers on homes they had only seen online in 2020, before the pandemic only 32% of homebuyers would make their home purchase this way.
Whenever you are ready to take your business to the next level and have a piece of the growing e-commerce market, reach out to us! We can get your product or service online and available to the world! Vhical is located in the New Albany, Indiana, Southern Indiana, and Louisville, Kentucky area, but we're available to help anyone who needs us! Reach out to [email protected]!